“Successful Church Libraries” By Elmer L. Towns and Cyril J. Barber. Baker Book House, Grand Rapids, Michigan, 1971.
Elmer Towns is professor of Christian education at Trinity Evangelical Divinity School. It is therefore understandable that the book stresses the church library as an educational center.
Cyril Barber is librarian at Trinity Evangelical Divinity School and former librarian at Winipeg Bible College, Canada.
The authors state in the Preface “The church library, we believe, can play a significant part in revitalizing a church to meet today’s challenges.” This statement indicates a philosophy and a church function which is very different than ours. It indicates that the church should be involved in social, economic affairs of the community.
Although the philosophy is inconsistent with ours, the book could be very valuable to any church group or with modification to any organization planning a library. The book is divided into thirteen chapters each giving useful hints on such topics as “Financing the Library’,” “Rules for the Library,” “Preparation of Materials,” and “Dewey Subject Guide for Easy Classification.”